Olga and I day tripped to Oso Flaco Lake which is in between Guadalupe and Oceano. It is about a mile from the ocean and is half surrounded by dunes, half surrounded by agriculture. There is a nice walkway across the lake and to the beach where we picnicked.

The plan was to start out on Sunday morning around 9 or 10. After eating up the rest of the corn, I left the house around 10:15. I had a camelback of water, two water bottles, two things of Nutella, two things of peanut butter, a jar of jelly, a loaf of bread, some trail mix, two cans of spam, a nature valley bar, a can of tuna, nutrigrain bars, a bunch of bananas, a bag of apples, two cans of beans, some oranges, and an avocado. I also had my sleeping bag, one extra shirt, a sweater, a beanie, a backpack, two disposable cameras, cellphone, toothbrush, directions, tools, portable pump, patch kit, extra tubes, and a sketch pad.

Here is my food and the first attempt at taking a picture of myself from a distance (which failed, the camera moved too much when I pulled the string so after that I started putting a jelly jar on it to hold it down)

Anyways, I went over the train station bridge and started out along the rail trail. Then I got out to Broad St. and started biking down towards the airport. I made to the airport and then disaster struck. My rear tire exploded! HEAAA! Only a couple miles out of town too!

Basically, because the tire was so old, the rubber just couldn’t hold the pressure anymore so it ripped apart and because of that, the tube exploded too. I was so close to home I just called Kendra and asked her to pick me up a new tire at the bike shop. She came and dropped it off but alas, it was the wrong size. I have “old” 26 inch wheels which are more like 27 inch wheels and so the “new” 26 inch tire was wayyy too small. Fail. So Then I called Lindsey and her and Brian came and picked me up and I just went to the bike shop and exchanged the tire for the right one. So dumb. Then I finally got on the road for reals at 2:00 and was out of slo around 2:30.

Here I am waiting for Kendra to bring me a new tire. sooo over it haha. Dairy Fresh’s rear wheel is off with the tire and tube removed. (The yellow string in the photo is from my homemade self timer for my disposable cameras. I guess its more like a remote shutter button but whatever. Ill post about that later when i get other film back)

And here is the same shot but with the self timer failing haha (Im stooped over the camera winding it up and I wound it too far and so it took the photo but you can see my hair ha!)

And the first sketch on my trip while I was waiting for Brian and Lindsey to pick me up:

I finally made it past the airport and then turned right out at Price Canyon Rd. And that road connected me right to Pismo. It was suuuper windy in the canyon though so that 5 or so miles took foreeeevveerrr. And it was really really hot too. And it was hot too. Then, once I made it over the hill to Pismo, it was all foggy and cold! No mas,

Anyways, I stopped in town at Old Juan’s Cantina’s parking lot to have lunch around 3:00. Ate my lunch and was just getting ready to leave when Old Juan himself came out and kicked me out of the lot before I could even leave HEAA!

Here I am preparing a pb&b&n&j sandwich in the lot:

Then I rode through the rest of Pismo and then through Oceano. I got lost in Oceano for about 15 minutes because my map told me to take a rode that had a huge locked gate on it. But I foound my way around it and eventually made it over to the PCH (pacific coast highway) (hwy 1).

Then there was a long section of nothing until I made it to Guadalupe which is directly West of Santa Maria.. Then I kept riding and then went through Orcutt. Nothing really there either.

But I did take these photos at a bridge which is 100 ft before Guadalupe and the county line for Santa Barbara County. The one of just the bridge was a mess up and was supposed to have me in it (again, you can see my hair) and then the blurry one does have me in it but a cop was coming and so I pulled the string really fast to get out of the road HEAA! which cause the camera to move and blur the photo.

Then I finally made it to just outside of Los Alamos. There was only about 20 minutes till the sun went down so I found a good hidden spot on somebody’s farm to sleep for the night. So I rolled out the sleeping bag, ate some food and passed out for the night. In the morning after I packed up my sleeping bag, this is what my 5 star hotel looked like: